The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [92]
‘She ran straight into no one,’ said the woman harshly. ‘She lost her way. Her man called at Kinneil, and then tried to cross the Avon and drowned.’ She glanced at the bed. ‘Alone, she hadna much chance. She wasna a strong lassie, or bold. As for her fancy, she was right, was she not? You were at each other’s throats.’
‘Yes,’ de Fleury said. He waited. Then he said, ‘How long have you known?’
The woman studied him. ‘About Gelis? I was told at Kilmirren.’
He waited again. Then he said, ‘Why did you follow? You thought the news would unhinge me, and I would harm someone?’
‘For all the good it did,’ she said flatly.
Simon said, ‘For all the good it did Lucia. He killed her.’
He was staring at de Fleury, but the old woman answered. ‘Oh, you’d like tae think so, nae doubt. But for why? Any secret she had, you had also.’
‘He thought it was me,’ Simon said. ‘He just said so. He drove her into the water.’
‘And rescued her? Simon,’ said the woman. ‘The hounds drove her into the water. She wore an auld cloak of yours. The King’s hounds followed after. A half-turn of the hour-glass before, and she would have been safe.’
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ de Fleury said. Then he became very still.
‘You hear?’ said Simon.
‘She wasn’t touched,’ the woman said. Her gaze was locked with de Fleury’s.
‘He knows how she died. He had a dog. There was a dog at the salt-pans.’ Simon spoke across the bed this time. ‘You thought it was me.’
‘Even so,’ the woman said. She was still watching the other. She spoke to him. ‘Even so, would you kill?’
Simon sat. The walls were so thick that no sound came from outside the room. His sister lay waxen and white, while the three voices passed and passed over her, teasing out the strands that had led to her death. Teasing and twisting them into a cord with which to take sasine of this man’s bodily housing, his neck.
The woman also wanted the truth, he saw that. She said again, ‘Would you kill?’
De Fleury said, ‘I get angry.’ It was an affirmative.
‘Tonight?’ she said.
‘Oh yes, tonight.’
‘And in the future?’ she said. ‘More of this? And you, Simon?’
‘You expect me to forgive him?’ said Simon. ‘I tell you over my sister’s dead body. He’ll hang.’
‘He maybe will,’ said Bel of Cuthilgurdy, ‘but not for this crime, or any other this night. You’ve forgotten the whip hand he has. You’ve forgotten Henry.’
She heaved to her feet and her eyes, resting with compassion on the bed, lifted up with the same compassion to Simon himself. She said, ‘Nicholas de Fleury is going to depart, and ye maun let him depart. His ship will sail, and ye maun let it sail. But before he goes he will tell us, I hope, that he is never going to come back to Scotland.’ She turned. ‘You will stay away. Do you hear?’
‘I hear,’ the other man said. ‘But it is not a promise that I can keep. I am sorry.’
He rose with an effort. For a moment, approaching the bed, he leaned towards it. When Simon made a quick, hostile gesture, he stopped. ‘Did you think I was going to kiss her? I thought her son Diniz should be told how she looked, that was all.’ He stood motionless where he had stopped, his eyes open.
‘Nicholas.’ It was the woman, reminding him.
‘I am going,’ said de Fleury, and shivered.
Simon was no less tired, no less angry, and with a brother’s responsibility for what had happened. He said, ‘I say when he goes. And he doesn’t go quite so easily.’
The woman looked at him. She said, ‘It’s his house.’ As she spoke, as on cue, the door opened. Simon looked towards it in haste.
Hacked out of Scandinavian whalebone, the renegade sea captain Crackbene stood there. He said, ‘Padrone, it is time.’
De Fleury moved then, pulling himself erect like a bow at the stretch and looking at the woman, and then at Simon himself. He said, ‘I am sorry. I have to go to Bruges, where so many, many riotous delights may be had. Sadly, I also mean to come back. Unfinished business: profits in prospect. I do own a Bank.’
He had begun to walk towards Crackbene, who was watching him. De Fleury glanced at him